Hello!
I hope you’re well and ready to get really personal! I want to talk to you about a situation I’m in at the moment that you have also no doubt been in. I’m watching my friend(s) get their dreams and achieve their goals while I am helpless to do anything about mine. It doesn’t help that I share a dream of studying post graduate medicine at Cambridge with quite a few people around me and while they’re hearing back right now, I still have to wait a year to apply. More specifically, today my friend got invited to an interview at Cambridge and I went from being ecstatically happy to painfully upset all within 30 seconds. What followed was a dramatic email chain with my housemate where both she and I let it all out in emotional prose. If I were a buzzfeed headline it would probably say
**COULD YOU STUDY MEDICINE AT CAMBRIDGE? GET ON THIS EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER TO FIND OUT**
Here is how I am feeling at the moment. I’ve changed names too just for fun.
To: Cordelia
Subject: not the upbeat kind of email
Dear Cordelia,
I am writing to you regarding my conflicting emotions. Having heard that my good friend Izzie from Healthcare Assistant work has been offered an interview at Cambridge I got the thumping feeling in my thoracic cavity and the pulsing veins in my head – adrenaline had kicked in. This was partly because I was so happy for her and partly because it feels very personal. I had held Cambridge medicine dear to my heart for so long that anything related to it affects me personally. I’m so happy for Izzie. But I also feel upset by how helpless I am right now regarding my own opportunities. I want to apply and let them know about me asap but I have to wait until next year. Izzie will probably be in by then. She won’t have the stress, she will be living her dream. I almost feel like it’s unfair for me to have to go through this twice – once now, while I’m doing all the things my friends are doing but they’re applying and I’m not, and then again next year, but for real and all alone.
I know it’s a waiting game and I will be in a much better position to apply next year, but I am not a patient person, this is challenging me in more ways than one.
What if after all this I don’t get in?
I genuinely don’t know how I’d cope with that.
To: autumnskyes
This email subject line filled me with dread before I opened it and I truly feel your pain. I know how hard it is for you to sit on your hands and not apply now when you are raring to go.
HOWEVER, you are done every single thing you can to ensure you have the best possible application as you can. and I completely understand your frustration and the feeling you are going through this twice. But you have double to time to glean information from the unis, what other people say, what hour friends say during interviews etc. And learn from their mistakes.
Do you mean get into Cambridge? Obviously that is the absolute dream but what is more important – becoming a doctor or going to Cambridge. I know you can do both but your journey may take you to another uni for postgrad medicine.
All I can say is no one is more destined to be a doctor that I know than you. You have the best temperament and manner combined with an incredible mind which is prepared for all the complexities and such a can do attitude. So please don’t give up! Your time will come ❤️
Sending lots of positive vibes and strength from your number one cheerleader xx
To: Cordelia
Dear Cordelia,
Thank you very much for your kind words – I feel consoled and better. You’re right, the goal is certainly to do medicine, rather than a specific university. Having said that, Cambridge has been a specific dream for so long that the two are not mutually exclusive and I would genuinely feel like I was living half the dream if I was somewhere else. I know that is a dangerous mind-set which might be setting me up to fail BUT I wouldn’t have let myself believe it and work so hard for it if I didn’t believe I was good enough to study there.
The more time passes, the more people around me I see wanting the same things but putting in much less effort to achieve them, the more deserving I feel of my dream coming true. It’s scary! Trust me, medicine at Cambridge is such a personal and important thing for me that I wouldn’t take it lightly and assume that just because I want to go there I have a good chance.
I’ve never been meticulous about anything, even when I applied the first time round I didn’t visit any of the unis or research the courses properly, I just thought I knew I wanted to study medicine, doesn’t matter where and I even believed that the fact I’m not doing much research proves I want it even more, because I don’t mind where I end up as long as it’s medicine. You could say I took it for granted. While that doesn’t mean I DIDN’T want to study medicine, this time I know I want it so much more. Let’s take it back to September 2016. I admit to myself medicine is what I want. Research online is done, comparative tables on word created, dad is consulted, I begin searching for chemistry tutoring. A year later, medicine has been like a 120 credit module: whether it’s researching criteria online, emailing unis to enquire, visiting open days, applying for healthcare assisting and working during holidays or revising for the chemistry retake – it’s a constant effort for the application. Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy I’m doing it, this time I don’t want to ever feel like I could have done more. But also this time I believe it’s good enough for Cambridge/Oxford. Which in turn means if I don’t get in, even my best wasn’t good enough. And that’s the scariest part and one I would not know how to deal with.
Sorry for the long spiel but who knows – maybe one day it’ll be published in my memoirs.
Lots of love.
If any of you are going through similar times where your friends are getting into universities, getting jobs, relationships, moving away – let me know, and also if you have any advice about any of this!
Just thought I would share this in case anyone is in a similar situation. 🙂
Lots of love,
autumnskyes
autumnskyesblog 